“I would be the happiest man if the gloomy winter of mankind were to give way to a shaft of sunlight and to coloured flowers. The world is very beautiful.”
Source: Letter to his daughter (1978), p. 78 - 79
Context: Earlier, I have cautioned you against an outright pragmatist approach. Now I am cautioning you against an outright populist approach. Sometimes a populist decision is, in the long run, not beneficial to the masses. Neither pragmatism nor populism are fundamental political and socio-economic doctrines. Nor do I say that you should play it by ear. I have made this melancholy analysis in anguish. My jail surroundings have not influenced my objectivity. I do not want to see the whole world in a death-cell merely because I am in a death cell. I do not say that the High Court has pronounced a death sentence on the world because a law court has pronounced a perverse death sentence on me. I would be the happiest man if the gloomy winter of mankind were to give way to a shaft of sunlight and to coloured flowers. The world is very beautiful. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". There is the beauty of the landscape, of the tall mountain, the green plains, the humped deserts. There is the beauty of the flowers and the forests, of the azure oceans and the meandering rivers. There is the splendour of architecture, the magnificence of music, and the sparkle of the dance. Above all, there is the beauty of man and woman, the most perfect creations of God.
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Zulfikar Ali Bhutto 41
Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan 1928–1979Related quotes
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the sound of the wind.”
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Qual d'acqua chiara il tremolante lume,
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Per gli ampli tetti va con lungo salto
A destra et a sinistra, e basso et alto.
Canto VIII, stanza 71 (tr. B. Reynolds)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“Hair got caught in the sunlight darling
But I just wasted the day.
I knew it would happen this way.”
I Knew It Would Happen This Way (Bonus track on pre-orders).
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